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November

Exhibits & Collections > History Up Close > November

In 1973 a Soviet fighter continued its assault on the record books demonstrating in dramatic fashion its capabilities by reaching 1,618.734 M.PH. over a 100 kilometer closed circuit course in April and in July establishing a world absolute altitude record by reaching 118,898 ft. With twin-tail fins and wings mounted high on a fuselage that consisted of two gaping rectangular jet intakes, the MiG-25 Foxbat drew the attention of American military officials, with Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans calling it “probably the best interceptor in production in the world today.”

A number of people at the Grumman Corporation on Long Island and manning cockpits of the Navy’s newest interceptor at Naval Air Station (NAS) Miramar, California, would have disagreed with the Secretary’s assessment. With wings that could automatically or manually be varied in sweep, area, camber, and aspect ration between 20 and 60 degrees to optimize performance in various flight envelopes, the F-14 Tomcat had first flown in 1970. By 1973 it had begun to reach squadron service, its eventual deployment aboard carriers at sea intended to bring to flight decks a long-range interceptor capable of defending battle groups against Soviet bombers. Key to its success in this endeavor was the performance of the AIM-54A Phoenix missile, which on 21 November 1973, completed a milestone test. Operating over the Pacific Missile Sea Test Range off Point Mugu, California, an F-14 completed the first test of a full arsenal of Phoenix missiles, launching six of them simultaneously at six separate targets at a distance of fifty miles and destroying four of them.

Other tests followed this demonstration, demonstrating the AIM-54’s long-range capabilities and ability to counter a strike employing electronic countermeasures. In the former, a Phoenix scored a lethal hit on a supersonic BQM-34E target drone after being launched at a range of 110 nautical miles, while the latter test demonstrated how an F-14 could knock out both the radar jamming aircraft and attacking fighter. Perhaps most important in relation to the nation’s Cold War adversary, another test specifically evaluated how the AIM-54 would fare against a MiG-25 Foxbat. Facing an AQM-37A drone simulating the radar cross section of a MiG-25 and flying at 82,000 ft. altitude at a speed of Mach 2.2, an F-14 unleashed an AIM-54 at a range of 35 nautical miles. While the F-14 was flying straight and level, the missile roared up vertically for six nautical miles and scored a lethal hit.

The F-14 Tomcat flew for the next three decades, with the aircraft that logged the last combat flights of the Tomcat’s venerable career flown to the museum in 2006. As for the AIM-54 missile, far more explosions occurred over test ranges than in actual combat. On only two occasions were AIM-54s fired in anger by U.S. Navy F-14s, including the first ever combat use on 5 January 1999, when F-14s joined other aircraft in combating MiG-25s. Ironically, these Foxbats wore the markings of Iraq, not the Soviet Union, the Phoenix having outlasted the Soviet adversary it was designed to counter. Retired along with the only aircraft to ever carry them, surviving AIM-54s are now the subject of research by the Navy and NASA to determine their suitability as hypersonic test platforms.

At right, Hughes Aircraft Company workers prepare a 13 ft. long AIM-54C Phoenix missile for testing.  An F-14A Tomcat of Fighter Squadron (VF) 201, a Texas-based Reserve squadron, launches an AIM-54 Phoenix over the Pacific Missile Test Range in August 1987. 

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